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Senators Cardin and McCain Engage in a Colloquy on the Magnitsky Act

Video of Senators Cardin and McCain - Colloquy on Rule of Law in Russia - May 26, 2011

Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Senator from Arizona is recognized.

Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, in a few minutes my colleague from Maryland, Senator Cardin, will be introducing a bill which I am a cosponsor of, along with a large bipartisan group of our colleagues. I wish to emphasize at the outset that some may characterize this legislation as anti-Russian. In fact, I believe it is pro-Russian. It is pro the people of Russia. It is pro the people who stand up for human rights and democracy in that country which, unfortunately, seems to be sadly deprived of.

This legislation, as my colleague and friend Senator Cardin will describe, requires the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, to publish a list of each person whom our government has reason to believe was responsible for the detention, abuse, or death of Sergei Magnitsky ; participated in efforts to conceal the legal liability for these crimes; committed those acts of fraud that Magnitsky uncovered; is responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of human rights committed against individuals seeking to expose illegal activities in Russia or exercise other universally recognized human rights.

Second, the individuals on that list would become the target of an array of penalties, among them, ineligibility to receive a visa to travel. They would have their current visas revoked, their assets would be frozen that are under U.S. jurisdiction, and U.S. financial institutions would be required to audit themselves to ensure that none of these individuals are able to bank excess funds and move money in the U.S. financial system.

I guess the first question many people will be asking is who was Sergei Magnitsky ? Who was this individual who has aroused such outrage and anger throughout the world? He was a tax attorney. He was a tax attorney working for an international company called Hermitage Capital that had invested in Russia. He didn't spend his life as a human rights activist or an outspoken critic of the Russian Government. He was an ordinary man. But he became an extraordinary champion of justice, fairness, and the rule of law in Russia where those principles, frankly, have lost meaning.

What Sergei Magnitsky did was he uncovered a collection of Russian Government officials and criminals who were associated with the Russian Government officials who colluded to defraud the Russian state of $230 million. The Russian Government in turn blamed the crime on Heritage Capital and threw Magnitsky in prison in 2008.

Magnitsky was detained for 11 months without trial. Russian officials, especially from the Interior Ministry, pressured Magnitsky to deny what he had uncovered--to lie and to recant. He refused. He was sickened by what his government had done and he refused to surrender principle to brute power.

As a result, he was transferred to increasingly more severe and more horrific prison conditions. He was forced to eat unclean food and water. He was denied basic medical care as his health worsened. In fact, he was placed in even worse conditions until, on November 16, 2009, having served 358 days in prison, Sergei Magnitsky died. He was 37 years old.

Sergei Magnitsky's torture and murder--let's call it what it really was--is an extreme example of a problem that is unfortunately all too common and widespread in Russia today: the flagrant violations of the rule of law and basic human rights committed by the Russian Government itself, along with its allies.

I note the presence of my colleague and lead sponsor of this important legislation. I hope in his remarks perhaps my friend from Maryland would mention the latest in the last few days which was the affirmation of the incredible sentence on Mr. Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his associate which is, in many ways, tantamount to a death sentence; again, one of these blatant abuses of justice and an example of the corruption that exists at the highest level of government.

I wish to say again I appreciate the advocacy of my colleague from Maryland and his steadfast efforts on behalf of human rights in Russia, Belarus, and other countries. It has been a great honor to work with him and for him in bringing this important resolution to the floor of the Senate.

I ask unanimous consent that at the appropriate time, the Senator from Maryland and I be allowed to engage in a colloquy.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Senator from Maryland.

Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, let me thank Senator McCain, not just for taking time for this colloquy concerning Mr. Magnitsky but for his longstanding commitment to justice issues, human rights issues, and the values the United States represents internationally.

We have had a long, proud, bipartisan, and, most importantly, successful record of promoting basic American values such as democratic governance and the rule of law around the world. Engaging the countries of the Eastern Bloc in matters such as respect for human rights was critical to winning the cold war. We will never know how many lives were improved and even saved due to instruments such as the Helsinki Final Act and the Jackson-Vanik amendment. These measures defined an era of human rights activism that ultimately pried open the Iron Curtain and brought down the Wall. Thankfully, the cold war is over and we have a stronger relationship, both at the governmental and societal levels, with countries in Eastern Europe. But, sadly, internationally recognized rights and freedoms continue to be trampled and, in many cases, with absolute impunity.

With the possibility of Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization, and the Presidents of the United States and Russia meeting in France, ours is a timely discussion.

Last week, I joined my distinguished colleague, the Senator from Arizona, and 14 other Senators from both parties to introduce the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act--a broad bill to address what the respected watchdog Transparency International dubbed a ``systematically corrupted country'' and to create consequences for those who are currently getting away with murder.

Actions always speak louder than words. The diplomatic manner of dealing with human rights abuses has frequently been to condemn the abusers, often publicly, with the hope that these statements will be all they need to do. They say oh, yes, we are against these human rights violations. We are for the rule of law. We are for people being able to come forward and tell us about problems and be able to correct things. They condemn the abusers, but they take no action. They think their words will be enough. Well, we know differently. We know what is happening today in Russia.

We know the tragedy of Sergei Magnitsky was not an isolated episode. This is not the only time this has happened. My colleague from Arizona mentioned the Mikhail Khodorkovsky case. Mr. Khodorkovsky is today in prison with even a longer sentence. Why? Because he had the courage to stand up and oppose the corrupt system in Russia and something should be done about it. That is why he is in prison, and that is wrong.

So it is time we do something about this and that we make it clear that action is needed. For too long, the leaders in Russia have said we are going to investigate what happened to Sergei Magnitsky . We think it is terrible he died in prison without getting adequate medical care. As Senator McCain pointed out, here is a person whose only crime was to bring to the proper attention of officials public corruption within Russia. As a result of his whistleblowing, he was arrested and thrown in jail and died in jail. He was tortured. That cannot be allowed, to just say, Oh, that is terrible. We know the people who were responsible. In some cases they have been promoted in their public positions. Well, it is time for us to take action. That is why we have introduced this legislation.

While this bill goes far beyond the tragic experiences of Sergei Magnitsky , it does bear his name, so let me refresh everyone's recollection with some of the circumstances concerning his death. I mention this because some might say, why are we talking about one person? But as the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin said, ``One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.'' I rarely agree with Dictator Stalin, but we have to put a human face on the issue. People have to understand that these are real people and real lives that have been ruined forever as a result of the abuses within Russia.

Sergei was a skilled tax lawyer who was well known in Moscow among many Western companies, large and small. In fact, he even did some accounting for the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. Working at the American law firm of Firestone Duncan, Sergei uncovered the largest known tax fraud in modern Russian history and blew the whistle on the swindling of his fellow citizens by corrupt officials. For that he was promptly arrested by the subordinates of those he implicated in the crime. He was held under torturous conditions in detention for nearly a year without trial or visits from family. He developed severe medical complications which went deliberately untreated, and he died on November 16, 2009, alone in an isolation cell while prison doctors waited outside his door. Sergei was 37 years old. He left behind a wife, two sons, a dependent mother, and so many friends.

Shortly after his death, Philip Pan of the Washington Post wrote:

Magnitsky's complaints, made public by his attorneys as he composed them, went unanswered while he lived. But in a nation where millions perished in the Soviet gulag, the words of the 37-year-old tax lawyer struck a nerve after he died ..... his descriptions of the squalid conditions he endured have been splashed on the front pages of newspapers and discussed on radio and television across the country, part of an outcry even his supporters never expected.

I think Senator McCain and I would agree, there is a thirst for democracy around the world. People in Russia want more. They want freedom. They want accountability. They want honest government officials. They are outraged by what happened to Sergei Magnitsky .
I would point out just last week I met with a leader of the Russian business community who came here and traveled at some risk, I might say. Just visiting me was a risk. We have people from Russia who are being questioned because they come and talk to us. But he said to me that what happened here needs to be answered by the Russian authorities. He understands why we are introducing this legislation.

A year after his death, and with no one held accountable, and some of those implicated even promoted and decorated, The Economist noted:

At the time, few people outside the small world of Russian investors and a few human-rights activists had heard of Mr. Magnitsky . A year later, his death has become a symbol of the mind-boggling corruption and injustice perpetrated by the Russian system, and the inability of the Kremlin to change it.

Regrettably, we know Sergei's case, egregious as it is, is not isolated. Human rights abuses continue unpunished and often unknown across Russia today.

To make this point more clear, let's look at another example far outside the financial districts of Moscow and St. Petersburg in the North Caucasus in southern Russia where Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, condones and oversees massive violations of human rights, including violations of religious freedom and the rights of women. His militia also violates international humanitarian laws. As of this April, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled against Russia in 186 cases concerning Chechnya, most involving civilians.

So Sergei Magnitsky's case is not an isolated case of abuse by the Russian authorities. There has been a systematic effort made to deny people their basic human rights, including one individual, Natalia Estemirova, who personally visited my office at the Helsinki Commission. She was a courageous human rights defender who was brutally assassinated.

So it is time for Russia to take action. But we cannot wait; we need to take action.

Mr. McCAIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. CARDIN. I yield back to my colleague.

Mr. McCAIN. First, I thank my colleague from Maryland for a very eloquent and, I think, very strong statement, to which I can add very little. But isn't it true, I ask my friend, that this Magnitsky case and the Khodorkovsky case, which I would like for us to talk a little bit more about, are not isolated incidents?

In other words, this is the face of the problem in Russia today. As the Senator mentioned, in its annual index of perceptions of corruption, Transparency International ranked Russia 154th out of 178 countries--perceived as more corrupt than Pakistan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe. The World Bank considers 122 countries to be better places to do business than Russia. One of those countries is Georgia, which the World Bank ranks as the 12th best country to do business.

In other words, isn't it true in the Magnitsky case, it is what has been taking place all across Russia, including this incredible story of Khodorkovsky, who was one of the wealthiest men in Russia, one of the wealthiest oligarchs who rebelled against this corruption because he saw the long-term consequences of this kind of corruption and was brought to trial, convicted, and then, when his sentence was completed, they charged him again?

Talk about a corrupt system, isn't it true that Vladimir Putin said he should ``sit in jail,'' and we now know that the whole trial was rigged, as revealed by people who were part of the whole trial? In other words, isn't it true, I would ask my friend from Maryland, that what we are talking about is one human tragedy, but it is a tragedy that is unfolding throughout Russia that we do not really have any knowledge of? And if we allow this kind of abuse to go on unresponded to, then, obviously, we are abrogating our responsibilities to the world; isn't that true?

Mr. CARDIN. I say to Senator McCain, you are absolutely right. This is not isolated. Magnitsky is not an isolated case of a lawyer doing his job on behalf of a client and being abused by the authorities. We have a lot of examples of lawyers trying to do their jobs and being intimidated and their rights violated.

But in Mr. Khodorkovsy's case, we have a business leader who was treated the same way just because he was a successful business leader. Even worse, he happened to be an opponent of the powers in the Kremlin.

So we are now seeing, in Russia, where they want to quell opposition by arresting people who are just speaking their minds, doing their business legally, putting them in prison, trying them, and in the Khodorkovsky case actually increasing their sentences the more they speak out against the regime.

That is how authoritarian they want to be and how oppressive they are to human rights. But I could go further. If one is a journalist in Russia, and they try to do any form of independent journalism, they are in danger of being beaten, being imprisoned, being murdered. It is very intimidating. The list goes on and on.

Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask my colleague, what implications, if any, does the Senator from Maryland believe this should have on the Russian entry into the World Trade Organization?

Mr. CARDIN. Well, it is very interesting, I say to Senator McCain. I just came from a Senate Finance Committee hearing, and we were talking about a free-trade agreement. I am for free-trade agreements. I think it makes sense. It is funny, when a country wants to do trade with the United States, they all of a sudden understand they have to look at their human rights issues.

I think all of us would like to see Russia part of the international trade community. I would like to see Russia, which is already a member of a lot of international organizations, live up to the commitments they have made in joining these international organizations.

But it is clear to me that Russia needs to reform. If we are going to have business leaders traveling to Russia in order to do business, I want to make sure they are safe in Russia. I want to make sure they are going to get the protection of the rule of law in Russia. I want to make sure there are basic rights that the businesspeople in Russia and the United States can depend upon.

So, yes, I understand that Russia would like to get into the WTO. We have, of course, the Jackson-Vanik amendment that still applies. I understand the origin of that law, and I understand what needs to change in order for Russia to be able to join the World Trade Organization.

But I will tell you this: The best thing that Russia can do in order to be able to enter the international trade regime is to clean up its abuses in its own country, to make clear it respects the rule of law; that businesspeople will be protected under the rule of law and certainly not imprisoned and tortured, as in the cases of Mr. Khodorkovsky and Mr. Magnitsky . We do not want to see that type of conduct.

If Russia would do that, if they would reform their systems, then I think we would be a long way toward that type of integration and trade.

Mr. McCAIN. I thank my colleague from Maryland for an eloquent statement about the situation as regards Russia. I thank him, and I can assure my colleague from Maryland that, as we speak, this will provide--and this legislation which he has introduced, will provide--some encouragement to people who in Russia now, in some cases, have lost almost all hope because of the corruption of the judicial system, as well as other aspects of the Russian nation.

We all know that no democracy can function without the rule of law; and if there are ever two examples of the corruption of the rule of law, it is the tragedy of Sergei Magnitsky and, of course, Mr. Khodorkovsky, who still languishes in prison; who, in his words, believes he--by the extension of his prison sentence--may have been given a death sentence.

So I thank my colleague from Maryland.

Mr. CARDIN. Will my colleague yield for just one final comment?

I think the Senator is right on target as to what he has said. I appreciate the Senator bringing this to the attention of our colleagues in the Senate.

I will respond to one other point because I am sure my colleague heard this. Some Russian officials say: Why are we concerned with the internal affairs of another country? I just want to remind these Russian officials, I want to remind my colleagues here, that Russia has signed on to the Helsinki Final Act. They did that in 1975, and they have agreed to the consensus document that was issued in Moscow in 1991 and reaffirmed just last year with the heads of state meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, just this past December. I am going to quote from that document:

The participating States--

Which Russia is a participating state--

emphasize that issues relating to human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law are of international concern, as respect for these rights and freedoms constitutes one of the foundations of international order. They categorically and irrevocably declared that the commitments undertaken in the field of the human dimension are matters of direct and legitimate concern to all participating States--

The United States is a participating state--

and do not belong exclusively to the internal affairs of the State concerned.

Mr. McCAIN. That was a statement by the Government of Russia?

Mr. CARDIN. That was a statement made by the 56 states of the OSCE at a meeting of the Heads of State, which happens about every 10 years. It just happened to have happened last year. Russia participated in drafting this statement. Russia was there, signed on to it, and said: We agree on this. It is a reaffirmation as to what they agreed to in 1991 in Moscow where we acknowledged that it is of international interest, and we have an obligation and right to question when a member state violates those basic human dimension commitments. Russia clearly has done that. We have not only the right but the obligation to raise that, and I just wanted to underscore that to my colleagues.

I say to Senator McCain, your comments on the Senate floor are so much on point. I think people understand it. They understand the basic human aspect to this. But sometimes they ask: Well, why should America be concerned? Do we have a legitimate right to question this? Russia signed the document that acknowledges our right to challenge this and raise these issues.

I thank my colleague for yielding.

Mr. McCAIN. I thank my colleague from Maryland, and I hope we would get, very rapidly, another 98 cosponsors.

The Magnitsky Act at Five

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Live Stream Will Begin Approximately Five Minutes Before the Hearing
In 2009, Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was brutally murdered in prison after uncovering the theft of $230 million by corrupt Russian officials. On December 14, 2012, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was signed into law in the United States, establishing punitive sanctions – including financial freezes and visa restrictions – for those complicit in Magnitsky’s murder and other human rights abuses in the Russian Federation. For the past five years, the Magnitsky Act has served as a basis for fighting corruption in Russia and the Putin regime’s systematic violations of the human rights of Russian citizens.
On the fifth anniversary of the Magnitsky Act, the Helsinki Commission will examine the implementation of the legislation, the resistance of the Russian government to it, and the impact of sanctions on senior members of Putin’s inner circle.

briefing

The International Tribunal and Beyond: Pursuing Justice for Atrocities in the Western Balkans

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Between 1991 and 2001 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, made up of six republics, was broken apart by a series of brutal armed conflicts. The conflicts were characterized by widespread and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, among them mass killings of civilians, the massive, organized and systematic detention and rape of women, torture, and practices of ethnic cleansing, including forced displacement.
In 1992 the U.N. established a Commission of Experts that documented the horrific crimes on the ground and led to the 1993 creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). This month, after more than two decades of persistent, ground-breaking efforts to prosecute the individuals responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the former Yugoslavia, the ICTY is concluding its work. As it prepares to close its doors, this briefing will assess the tribunal’s achievements and limitations, and most importantly, what still needs to be done by the countries of the region to seek justice in outstanding cases, bring greater closure to victims, and foster greater reconciliation among peoples.
Panelists discussed these questions and suggested ways that the United States, Europe, and the international community as a whole can encourage the further pursuit of justice in the Western Balkans.

article

The Legacy of Sergei Magnitsky

Sunday, December 10, 2017

By Woody Atwood, Intern
In 2008, a Russian tax lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky representing Hermitage Capital Management in a dispute over alleged tax evasion discovered a $230 million fraud being committed by Russian law enforcement officers assigned to the case.
Magnitsky reported the fraud to the authorities and was arrested soon after by the same officers he had accused. For almost a year, Magnitsky was held in squalid prison conditions, denied visits from his family, and beaten by guards. Despite developing serious cases of gallstones, pancreatitis, and cholecystitis, he was denied medical attention. On November 16, 2009, Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death in his cell. He had been imprisoned for 358 days, just seven days short of the maximum legal pre-trial detention period in Russia.
A year later, Sen. Ben Cardin (MD), then Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, introduced the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act, directing the U.S. Secretary of State to publish a list of individuals involved in Sergei’s detention and death, and enabling the government to deny these individuals entry to the United States and freeze their American assets. The bill was reintroduced in the next Congress as the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. This version covered all individual who commit extrajudicial killings, torture or otherwise egregiously violate the human rights of activists or whistleblowers in Russia. Both houses of Congress passed the new bill in late 2012 as part of the Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act. On December 14, 2012, President Obama signed the Magnitsky Act into law, establishing severe consequences for the worst human rights violators in Russia.
Just weeks after the passage of the Magnitsky Act, the Russian parliament and government responded by passing a law banning American families from adopting children from Russia. The law immediately terminated adoptions that were being processed, and many children, including children with serious disabilities, who were due to leave Russia were never able to join their American families. In 2013, the Russian government also issued a list of 18 American officials banned from entering Russia.
In 2015, Sen. Cardin and Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04), who was then chairing the Helsinki Commission, introduced the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act to expand the authorities established by the original Magnitsky Act to include the worst human rights violators and those who commit significant acts of corruption around the world. The legislation required the President to annually issue a list of individuals sanctioned under it on Human Rights Day (December 10) or the soonest day thereafter when the full Congress is in session. The global version was passed in December 2016 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017.
The story of Sergei Magnitsky and the actions of the U.S. Congress have sparked a global movement to hold individual perpetrators accountable for their human rights violations and corruption. In the last year, Estonia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Lithuania have all passed their own Magnitsky laws.
In honor of Human Rights Day and the fifth anniversary of the Magnitsky Act, and to correspond to the deadline for the annual Global Magnitsky List, the U.S. Helsinki Commission is holding two events related to the legacy of Sergei Magnitsky. On Wednesday, December 13, at 3:00PM Commission staff will lead a public briefing on “Combating Kleptocracy with the Global Magnitsky Act,” and on Thursday, December 14, Commissioners will hear testimony on “The Magnitsky Act at Five: Assessing Accomplishments and Challenges.”

article

International Anti-Corruption Day 2017: Curtailing Kleptocracy

Saturday, December 09, 2017

By Paul Massaro, Policy Advisor
and John Engelken, Intern
On Saturday, December 9, the Helsinki Commission joins the United Nations and many others in recognizing International Anti-Corruption Day, which is of particular importance today given the ease with which illicit financial flows traverse national borders.
International Anti-Corruption Day was established as part of the UN’s passage of the United Nations Convention against Corruption, which was adopted on October 31, 2003. This legally binding international agreement focuses on five key areas of anti-corruption policy: preventive measures, criminalization and law enforcement, international cooperation, asset recovery, and technical assistance and information exchange.
Given corruption’s global nature, disproportionate victimization of economically vulnerable communities, and corrosion of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, participating in anti-corruption efforts worldwide is a central responsibility of the Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the U.S. Helsinki Commission.
No form of corruption is so insidious as kleptocracy, or “rule by thieves.” Kleptocrats abuse the global financial system, moving massive wealth from their home countries to nations where the rule of law is more established; they then use these ill-gotten funds to finance crime and terrorism, fund extravagant lifestyles, and corrode political institutions from the inside out.
The frequency with which kleptocratic regimes engage in corrupt activity and money-laundering to maintain political power and accumulate material wealth emphasizes the need for governments and international bodies to coordinate more closely and step up their work to root out corruption. It also emphasizes the need for countries where the rule of law is respected to adopt reforms that make it more difficult for kleptocrats to abuse their legal and financial frameworks.
Encompassing a region that contains both corrupt kleptocracies that steal state and business assets and rule-of-law democracies in which those stolen assets are hidden, the OSCE is uniquely situated to confront the problem of corruption, and has taken on a number of commitments to do just that. In particular, the 2012 Dublin Declaration and the 2014 Basel Decision contain language calling for domestic reforms consistent with the rule of law and political transparency initiatives, in tandem with more concerted anti-corruption efforts. In addition, these texts contain commitments to combat the transnational money-laundering that makes grand corruption possible and encourage private firms to play a greater role in identifying and countering corruption.
The U.S. Helsinki Commission regularly highlights the problem of corruption through public events, publications, and statements. In 2017 alone, the Commission has held four briefings on the issue – Countering Corruption in the OSCE Region: Returning Ill-Gotten Assets and Closing Safe Havens; Energy (In)Security in Russia’s Periphery; Kleptocrats of the Kremlin: Ties Between Business and Power in Russia; and Ukraine’s Fight against Corruption – as well as two Congressional hearings, The Romanian Anti-Corruption Process: Successes and Excesses and Combating Kleptocracy With Incorporation Transparency.
In addition, the Commission has published two short thematic articles, Russia’s Weaponization of Corruption (And Western Complicity) and Beyond Pipelines: Breaking Russia’s Grip on Post-Soviet Energy Security, as well as a brief overview of corruption in Russia and an in-depth report on Ukraine’s fight against corruption. Finally, the Commission’s Chairman, Senator Roger Wicker, recently made a statement regarding Ukraine’s fight against corruption.
On International Anti-Corruption Day, the Helsinki Commission remains committed to doing its part in the fight against corruption and applauds the efforts of other national, international, and non-governmental organizations doing the same.

press release

Helsinki Commission to Assess Magnitsky Act at Five

Thursday, December 07, 2017

WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following hearing:
THE MAGNITSKY ACT AT FIVE:
ASSESSING ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND CHALLENGES
Thursday, December 14, 2017
9:30 AM
Dirksen Senate Office Building
Room 562
Live Webcast: http://www.senate.gov/isvp/?type=live&comm=csce&filename=csce121417
In 2009, Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was brutally murdered in prison after uncovering the theft of $230 million by corrupt Russian officials. On December 14, 2012, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was signed into law in the United States, establishing punitive sanctions – including financial freezes and visa restrictions – for those complicit in Magnitsky’s murder and other human rights abuses in the Russian Federation. For the past five years, the Magnitsky Act has served as a basis for fighting corruption in Russia and the Putin regime’s systematic violations of the human rights of Russian citizens.
On the fifth anniversary of the Magnitsky Act, the Helsinki Commission will examine the implementation of the legislation, the resistance of the Russian government to it, and the impact of sanctions on senior members of Putin’s inner circle.
The following witnesses are scheduled to testify:
William Browder, CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and author of Red Notice. Browder has led the fight to seek justice for Sergei Magnitsky and his family in both the U.S. and abroad. He will outline Russian opposition to his anti-corruption efforts and his work to help pass similar legislation around the world.
The Hon. Irwin Cotler, PC, OC, Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights; Former Canadian Member of Parliament, Attorney General of Canada, and Minster of Justice. Cotler will provide details about Canada’s recent passage of its Magnitsky Act, its importance to Canada, and Russian resistance to the legislation.
Garry Kasparov, Chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and author of Winter Is Coming: Why Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped. Kasparov will explain the threat Putin’s regime poses toward the United States and analyze the Magnitsky Act’s efficacy.

press release

Helsinki Commission, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Announce Briefing on Justice in Western Balkans and Closing of International Tribunal

Thursday, December 07, 2017

WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission (TLHRC) today announced the following briefing:
THE INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL AND BEYOND:
PURSUING JUSTICE FOR ATROCITIES IN THE WESTERN BALKANS
Tuesday, December 12, 2017
10:00 AM - 11:30 PM
Rayburn House Office Building
Room 2255
Live Webcast: www.facebook.com/HelsinkiCommission
Between 1991 and 2001 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, made up of six republics, was broken apart by a series of brutal armed conflicts. The conflicts were characterized by widespread and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, among them mass killings of civilians, the massive, organized and systematic detention and rape of women, torture, and practices of ethnic cleansing, including forced displacement.
In 1992 the U.N. established a Commission of Experts that documented the horrific crimes on the ground and led to the 1993 creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). This month, after more than two decades of persistent, ground-breaking efforts to prosecute the individuals responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in the former Yugoslavia, the ICTY is concluding its work. As it prepares to close its doors, this briefing will assess the tribunal’s achievements and limitations, and most importantly, what still needs to be done by the countries of the region to seek justice in outstanding cases, bring greater closure to victims, and foster greater reconciliation among peoples.
Panelists will discuss these questions and suggest ways that the United States, Europe, and the international community as a whole can encourage the further pursuit of justice in the Western Balkans.
Panelists:
Serge Brammertz, Chief Prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
Nemanja Stjepanovic, Member of the Executive Board, Humanitarian Law Center (from Belgrade, Serbia, live via video)
Diane Orentlicher, Professor of Law, Washington College of Law, American University
Additional panelists may be added.

WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following briefing:
COMBATING KLEPTOCRACY WITH THE GLOBAL MAGNITSKY ACT
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
3:00PM
Russell Senate Office Building
Room 385
Live Webcast: www.facebook.com/HelsinkiCommission
In 2016, Congress passed the Global Magnitsky Act, which seeks to prohibit the worst foreign human rights offenders and most corrupt officials operating anywhere in the world from entering into the United States and to block their U.S. assets. This law requires that each year on December 10 (Human Rights Day), or the first day Congress is in session thereafter, the President submit a report to Congress that includes a list of each foreign person sanctioned under the law during the preceding year.
The anti-corruption provisions are of particular interest given how wide-ranging and unprecedented they are as a tool to combat kleptocracy. While combating corruption has traditionally focused on internal reforms and best practices, the Global Magnitsky Act enables the United States to target those individuals who steal from their populations and abuse the global financial system as well as those who facilitate their grand corruption.
This briefing seeks to provide an overview of the scourge of corruption in the OSCE region and how the Global Magnitsky Act can be employed to combat it. It will include a discussion of the types of individuals and groups that should come under consideration for placement on the sanctions list and the ramifications of any such placement.
The following panelists will offer brief remarks, followed by questions:
Alex Johnson, Senior Policy Advisor for Europe and Eurasia, Open Society Policy Center
Charles Davidson, Executive Director, Kleptocracy Initiative, Hudson Institute
Rob Berschinski, Senior Vice President, Human Rights First

briefing

Ukraine: Report from the Front Lines

Thursday, November 30, 2017

For more than three years, civilians in eastern Ukraine have suffered the effects of a needless conflict manufactured and managed by Russia; an estimated 10,000 people have been killed and more than 23,500 injured. The humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate amidst almost daily ceasefire violations and threats to critical infrastructure.
Joseph Stone, an American paramedic, was killed on April 23, 2017 while monitoring the conflict as an unarmed, civilian member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine. SMM reports remain the only source of verifiable, public information on this ongoing conflict and the grave, daily impact it has on the local civilian population. Mission personnel face regular and sometimes violent harassment by combined Russian-separatist forces seeking to limit the SMM’s access to the areas they control.
At this U.S. Helsinki Commission briefing, Alexander Hug, Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, detailed the humanitarian consequences of the ongoing conflict in Eastern Ukraine; provided an overview of the role of OSCE monitors and the threats they face in carrying out their duties; and offered thoughts on prospects going forward.
Alexander Hug has served in several roles at the OSCE, including as a Section Head and a Senior Adviser to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities as well as at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. His career in conflict resolution includes work with the Swiss Headquarters Support Unit for the OSCE in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, and the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo.

briefing

Ukraine's Fight Against Corruption

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Today, Ukraine has an historic opportunity to overcome its long struggle with pervasive corruption. Never before in its past has the country experienced such meaningful reforms, with the most significant being the establishment of a robust and independent anticorruption architecture. However, much remains to be done. An anticorruption court is urgently needed, as is an end to the escalating harassment of civil society.
This briefing of the U.S. Helsinki Commission introduced the Commission’s recently published report, “The Internal Enemy: A Helsinki Commission Staff Report on Corruption in Ukraine.” Briefers discussed the conclusions of this report as well as the fight against corruption in Ukraine more broadly.

WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following briefing:
UKRAINE’S FIGHT AGAINST CORRUPTION
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
1:00PM
Dirksen Senate Office Building
Room 562
Live Webcast: www.facebook.com/HelsinkiCommission
Today, Ukraine has an historic opportunity to overcome its long struggle with pervasive corruption. Never before in its past has the country experienced such meaningful reforms, with the most significant being the establishment of a robust and independent anticorruption architecture. However, much remains to be done. An anticorruption court is urgently needed, as is an end to the escalating harassment of civil society.
This briefing of the U.S. Helsinki Commission will introduce the Commission’s recently published report, “The Internal Enemy: A Helsinki Commission Staff Report on Corruption in Ukraine.” Briefers will discuss the conclusions of this report as well as the fight against corruption in Ukraine more broadly. Copies of the report will be available for distribution.
The following panelists will offer brief remarks, followed by questions:
Oksana Shulyar, Deputy Chief of Mission, Embassy of Ukraine in the United States
Orest Deychakiwsky, Former U.S. Helsinki Commission Policy Advisor for Ukraine
Anders Aslund, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council
Brian Dooley, Senior Advisor, Human Rights First

WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following briefing:
UKRAINE: REPORT FROM THE FRONT LINES
Thursday, November 30, 2017
2:00PM
Senate Visitors Center (SVC)
Room 215
Live Webcast: www.facebook.com/HelsinkiCommission
For more than three years, civilians in eastern Ukraine have suffered the effects of a needless conflict manufactured and managed by Russia; an estimated 10,000 people have been killed and more than 23,500 injured. The humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate amidst almost daily ceasefire violations and threats to critical infrastructure.
Joseph Stone, an American paramedic, was killed on April 23, 2017 while monitoring the conflict as an unarmed, civilian member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine. SMM reports remain the only source of verifiable, public information on this ongoing conflict and the grave, daily impact it has on the local civilian population. Mission personnel face regular and sometimes violent harassment by combined Russian-separatist forces seeking to limit the SMM’s access to the areas they control.
At this U.S. Helsinki Commission briefing, Alexander Hug, Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, will detail the humanitarian consequences of the ongoing conflict in Eastern Ukraine; provide an overview of the role of OSCE monitors and the threats they face in carrying out their duties; and offer thoughts on prospects going forward.
Alexander Hug has served in several roles at the OSCE, including as a Section Head and a Senior Adviser to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities as well as at the OSCE Mission in Kosovo. His career in conflict resolution includes work with the Swiss Headquarters Support Unit for the OSCE in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, and the EU Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo.

hearing

Prisoners of the Purge

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

In July 2016, the Turkish people helped defeat a coup attempt that sought to overthrow their country’s constitutional order. In pursuing those responsible for the putsch, however, Turkish authorities created a dragnet that ensnared tens of thousands of people. The state of emergency declared by President Erdogan in the immediate aftermath of the coup attempt remains in effect today and gives the government vast powers to detain or dismiss from employment almost anyone, with only minimal evidence.
Caught up in the sweeping purge are several American citizens, including Pastor Andrew Brunson, NASA scientist Serkan Gölge. Brunson worked and raised his family in Turkey for more than 23 years. Despite the efforts of the President of the United States, among many others, he has spent more than a year in jail without trial on national security charges. In addition, Gölge and two Turkish employees of U.S. consulates stand charged with terrorism offenses despite no involvement with violent activity—a situation faced by thousands of other Turks.
The U.S. Helsinki Commission hearing examined the factors contributing to the detention of American citizens, particularly Mr. Brunson, and U.S. consulate employees in Turkey, as well as the judicial processes to which they have been subject. Sen. Thom Tillis presided over the hearing, voicing his concerns about the treatment of American detainees in Turkey and the country’s deteriorating democratic institutions, particularly the judiciary.
During the hearing, the Commission heard testimony from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Jonathan Cohen, Executive Senior Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) CeCe Heil, Pastor Brunson’s daughter Jacqueline Furnari, and Director of Freedom House’s Nations in Transit Project Nate Schenkkan.
All witnesses spoke to their concerns about the worsening political climate in Turkey and the safety of its political prisoners, including Mr. Brunson and Mr. Gölge. They also discussed the impact of these arrests on U.S.-Turkey relations and policy recommendations that could help secure their release and promote Turkey’s respect for its rule of law and other commitments as a participating State of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Mr. Cohen called on the Turkish government to end the protracted state of emergency, cease sweeping roundups, and expedite due process for all the detained. He encouraged Congress to continue engagement through in-person and written correspondence with Turkish officials to communicate concerns about specific detention cases and the broader rule of law.
Mr. Schenkkan detailed the scale of Turkey’s wide-scale purges, which he described as targeting independent voices and ordinary citizens from nearly every sector and as far exceeding any reasonable scope corresponding to the failed coup attempt. He recommended that the United States explore the application of individual sanctions against Turkish officials responsible for the prolonged and unjust detention of American citizens and U.S. consulate employees.
Mrs. Heil and Mrs. Furnari testified about the physical, psychological, and personal toll of Pastor Brunson’s prolonged detention. They noted that Pastor Brunson has lost 50 pounds while in detention and suffered psychologically and emotionally from his isolation and separation from his family.

in the news

Bill Browder, Putin Enemy No. 1

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

The harrowing tale of Bill Browder—how an American-born businessman became an enemy of the Russian state, how he has to live in constant fear, never knowing if the long arm of the Kremlin will snatch him, or kill him—is its own kind of daily terror. But what Browder’s story tells us about the way Vladimir Putin operates, and what he might want from this country, should scare us all.
William Browder took his family on vacation in July, though he won't say where because that is one of those extraneous bits of personal information that could, in a roundabout way, get him bundled off to a Siberian prison or, possibly, killed. For eight years, he's been jamming up the gears of Vladimir Putin's kleptocratic machine, a job that seems to often end in jail or death, both of which he'd very much like to avoid. He'll concede, at least, that his leisure travels took him from London, where he lives, through Chicago, where he changed planes. As he walked through a terminal at O'Hare, he got a call from a New York Times reporter named Jo Becker.
"Do you know anything," she asked, "about a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya?"
Browder stopped short. "Yes," he said. "I know a lot about her."
One of the most important things he knew was that Veselnitskaya had spent many dollars and many hours trying to convince Washington that Browder is a criminal. More than a decade ago, Browder was the largest individual foreign investor in Russia, managing billions in his hedge fund. Then, in 2009, one of his attorneys was tortured to death in a Moscow jail after exposing a massive tax fraud committed by Russian gangsters. His name was Sergei Magnitsky, and Browder has spent the years since trying to hold accountable anyone connected to Sergei's death. The most significant way is through the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, a 2012 U.S. law that freezes the assets and cripples the travel of specific Russians, many of whom have allegedly laundered millions of dollars in the West.
The Kremlin hates that law. Putin's hold on power requires the loyalty of dozens of wealthy oligarchs and thousands of complicit functionaries, and their loyalty, in turn, requires Putin to protect the cash they've stashed overseas. Putin hates the law so much that he retaliated by banning Americans from adopting Russian children—yes, by holding orphans hostage—and has said that overturning the Magnitsky Act is a top priority.
That's where Veselnitskaya comes in. As a lawyer, she represented a Russian businessman trying to recover $14 million frozen by the Magnitsky Act. More important, she was involved in an extensive 2016 lobbying and public-relations campaign to weaken or eliminate the act, in large part by recasting Browder as a villain who conned Congress into passing it. That was not empty political spin for an American audience: The Russians really do want Browder in prison. In 2013, a Russian court convicted him in absentia (and Sergei in his grave) of the very crime Sergei uncovered and sentenced Browder to nine years in prison. Later, it got worse. In April 2016, Russian authorities accused Browder of murdering Sergei—that is, of killing the person on whose behalf Browder had been crusading, and who the Russians for seven years had insisted was not, in fact, murdered.
The campaign was oafish yet persistent enough that Browder thought it wise to compile a 26-page presentation on the people behind it. Veselnitskaya appears on five of those pages.
"I've been trying to get someone to write this goddamned story," Browder told Becker on July 8. "She's not just some private lawyer. She's a tool of the Russian government."
But why, Browder wanted to know, was Becker suddenly interested?
"I can't tell you," she said. "But I think you'll be interested in a few hours."
Browder flew off to the place he won't name, switched on his phone, and scrolled to the Times website. He drew in a sharp breath.
He exhaled. F***.
Donald Trump Jr. told the Times that the June 9, 2016, meeting had been about adoptions, which demonstrated either how out of his depth he was or how stupid he thought reporters were. If Veselnitskaya had been talking about adoption, she of course had been talking about the Magnitsky Act.
Which meant she'd also been talking about Bill Browder.
He read the story again, closely. Browder wasn't sure what the implications were. But if he'd known about it in real time—that the staff of a major-party presidential candidate was listening intently to those who accuse him of murder and want him extradited and imprisoned—he would have been terrified.
"Putin kills people," Browder said to me one afternoon this autumn. "That's a known fact. But Putin likes to pretend that he doesn't kill people. So he tends to kill people he can get away with killing."
Browder did not say this as if it were a revelation. (And technically it's an allegation that Putin has people killed, albeit one so thoroughly supported by evidence and circumstance that no one credibly disputes it.) Rather, he told me that by way of explaining why he was telling me anything at all: The more often and publicly he tells the story of Sergei Magnitsky, the less likely he'll be to get poisoned or shot or tossed out a window, which has happened to a number of Putin's critics. If anything does happen to him, he reasons, the list of suspects would be short.
He spoke softly, methodically, though with great efficiency; not scripted, but well practiced. We were in the conference room of his offices in London. Afternoon light washed through a wall of windows, threw bright highlights onto his scalp, sparked off the frame of his glasses. Browder is 53 years old, medium build, medium height, medium demeanor, and was wearing a medium-blue suit. He does not look like a threat to Russian national security, which the Kremlin declared him to be 12 years ago. Still, there is a hint of steel, something hard and sharp beneath all of the mediumness; if he confessed that he'd served in the Special Forces, it would be a little surprising but not shocking.
It was late September, and Donald Trump had been president for 248 days. In the weeks after the election, Browder was "worried and confused." Trump has a creepy habit of praising Putin, but he'd also surrounded himself with Russia hard-liners like General James Mattis, Nikki Haley, and Mike Pompeo—secretary of defense, ambassador to the United Nations, and director of the CIA, respectively. Browder war-gamed the Magnitsky Act but didn't see any way that Trump could kill it—Congress would have to repeal the law—only a chance that he might refuse to add more names to the target list. (Five people were added to the list last January, bringing the total to 44.) He figured the same was true with the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which President Obama signed shortly before leaving office, expanding the targeted-sanctions tool to human-rights abusers worldwide. The Russians hate that law, too, because having "Magnitsky" in the title reminds the entire planet where the standard was set and by whom.
The first months of the new administration unspooled, spring into summer. Trump's flirtation with Putin persisted, but with no practical effect. "The Russians got nothing," Browder said. Congress, in fact, imposed its own sanctions on Russia for meddling in the 2016 election, cutting Trump out of the loop entirely. "I watch this like a hawk," Browder said, "and so far they've gotten nothing. There's not a single piece of Russian policy that's gone Putin's way."
But then, in July, the Times reported that Veselnitskaya had met with Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager at the time, in June 2016. That shifted the calculus. "America has been my staunchest ally," Browder said. "It wasn't an assumption but a question: Had they flipped my biggest ally?"
That was still an open question when we met in London. Much more had been reported about Trump and Russia. Other contacts and communications were known, and details kept evolving, an endless, sloppy churn of information. There was more, too, about the meeting with Veselnitskaya, which happened two weeks after Trump secured the nomination: It was attended by eight people in all, including Rinat Akhmetshin, who is usually described as a former Russian military-intelligence officer, though that generously assumes that any Russian spook is ever fully retired from the spy game. Browder has another PowerPoint presentation on him. Additionally, Manafort's notes on the meeting reportedly mentioned Browder by name.
This is all bad. "They were in a meeting to discuss Bill Browder, the Magnitsky Act, and how to get the Magnitsky Act repealed," he said. "Now, what [the Russians] were offering in return, we don't know. But if it had just been a courtesy meeting, only one of [the Trump team] would have showed up."
Maybe no one will ever know what, if anything, the Russians offered. But there's no doubt what they wanted, and how badly. In a four-page memo prepared for the meeting by Veselnitskaya (and later obtained by Foreign Policy), the Magnitsky Act was inspired by "a fugitive criminal" who ripped off the Russian treasury and then went on a worldwide publicity tour to, apparently, cover it up. "Using the grief of the family of Magnitsky to his own advantage, Browder exposes them as a human shield to distract attention from the details of his own crime," she wrote. Passage of the Magnitsky Act, moreover, marked "the beginning of a new round of the Cold War."
That is an assertion as grandiose as it is belligerent. And yet it is not wholly inaccurate. To understand why the Kremlin is so perturbed, it helps to understand Bill Browder. In many ways, he is the Rosetta Stone for decoding the curious relationship between the Trumps and the Russians.
Browder's grandfather Earl was a communist. He started as a union organizer in Kansas and spent some time in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, where he married a Jewish intellectual and had the first of his three sons, Felix. The family moved to Yonkers in 1932, where Earl became secretary general of the Communist Party USA. He ran for president twice, in 1936 and 1940, and Time magazine put him on its cover in 1938 above the headline COMRADE EARL BROWDER. His fortunes fell in 1941, when he was convicted of passport fraud. His four-year sentence was commuted after 14 months, and he was released into relative obscurity until the 1950s, when he was harassed by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Bill's grandmother steered her boys away from politics and toward academics, in which they wildly overachieved. Felix enrolled at M.I.T. at the age of 16, graduated in two years, and had a Princeton Ph.D. in math when he was 20. He met his wife, Eva, at M.I.T., a Jewish girl who'd fled Vienna ahead of the Nazis and spent her teenage years in a tenement with her impoverished mother.
Felix and Eva had two boys. Their first, Thomas, took after his father: University of Chicago at 15, doctoral student in physics at 19. Their second, Bill, did not. He liked to ski and smoke and drink. He got kicked out of a second-tier boarding school and barely got into the University of Colorado, which was fine with him because it was a notorious party school. By his account, he spent his formative years rebelling against everything his leftist-intellectual family held sacred.
"Rejecting school was a good start, but if I really wanted to upset my parents, then I would have to come up with something else," he wrote in his 2015 book, Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice. "Then, toward the end of high school, it hit me. I would put on a suit and tie and become a capitalist. Nothing would piss off my family more than that."
He started studying, transferred to the University of Chicago, got into a two-year pre-MBA program at Bain & Company, in Boston. He parlayed that and an essay about Comrade Earl Browder—from communist to capitalist in two generations!—into a seat at Stanford. Out of genealogical curiosity, he began thinking about Eastern Europe. "If that's where my grandfather had carved out his niche," he wrote, "then maybe I could, too." He got a job with a consulting firm and moved to London in August 1989. Three months later, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union crumbled. Eastern Europe was wide open for business.
His first account was consulting for a Polish bus manufacturer that was bleeding cash. It was miserable work in a miserable little city, but while he was there his translator explained the financial tables in the local newspaper. With the fall of communism, nationalized companies were being privatized and their stocks were offered at fire-sale prices: A company with $160 million in profits the previous year had a stock valuation of only $80 million.
Browder invested his entire savings, $2,000, in Polish stocks. He eventually walked away with $20,000. He'd found his niche.
By 1993, he was in Moscow, investing in staggeringly undervalued stocks: He invested $25 million and turned a $100 million profit. With money that good and almost no Western competition, Browder, in 1996, raised enough cash to open his own fund, Hermitage Capital.
Over the next decade, Hermitage did exceptionally well. The downside, though, was that the economy wasn't transitioning from communism to capitalism so much as it was devolving into gangsterism. Corruption was endemic. A handful of oligarchs looted and swindled at their leisure. Browder countered by positioning himself as an activist shareholder; he and his staff would piece together who was ripping off what, name names, try to impose a modicum of order on a lawless system.
When Vladimir Putin rose to power, Browder believed he was a reformer eager to purge the kleptocracy. In 2003, for example, Putin arrested the country's richest man, oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky, charged him with fraud, and displayed him in a cage in a courtroom until his inevitable conviction. In the context of the time, many critics saw the ordeal as a capricious show trial orchestrated by an authoritarian thug.
Not Browder. "I would trust Putin any day of the week," he told The Washington Post in early 2004. "It's like being in a lawless schoolyard where there's bullies running around and beating up all us little people, and then one day a big bully comes along and all the little bullies fall into line. That's what the state is supposed to be—the big bully."
But Putin, he discovered, wasn't pushing for good corporate governance. He was taking over the rackets. Putin put Khodorkovsky in a cage for the same reason Vito Corleone put a horse's head in Jack Woltz's bed: to send a message. Oligarchs could steal, but they had to pay tribute.
Oligarchs no longer needed to be named and shamed; they needed to be kept in line and to keep earning. At that point, an activist shareholder like Browder became an expensive nuisance. Browder was kicked out of the country on November 13, 2005.
For a while, he thought the Russian bureaucracy had made a mistake by canceling his visa, confusing him with someone else, perhaps, or misfiling some paperwork. He enlisted the help of British diplomats—Browder had been a British citizen since 1998—to no avail. There had been no mistake. Browder had been declared a threat to Russian national security.
Hermitage Capital remained in business, though, its office run by Browder's staff while he oversaw operations from London. But in Moscow, the pressure only increased. In June 2007, security forces raided Hermitage and the office of the law firm it employed. They carted away computers and files and, interestingly, all the corporate seals and stamps. At first, none of that made sense.
But then Sergei Magnitsky, a 36-year-old Muscovite who handled tax matters for Hermitage, started digging around. He eventually discovered three of Hermitage's holding companies had been used by Russian gangsters to swindle $230 million in tax rebates. It was a straight-up robbery of the Russian treasury. The scam wasn't unheard of, except the amount was perhaps the largest such tax fraud ever uncovered in Russia.
Browder and his staff reported the theft to the authorities and the media in the summer of 2008. They even named suspects, including some of the security officials who'd earlier been involved in the office raids. Nothing happened. Then, a few months later, on November 24, 2008, Sergei was arrested at his home.
He was held for nearly a year in various prisons, overrun with rats and damp with sewage. According to complaints Sergei wrote, he was fed porridge infested with insects and rotten fish boiled into mush. He contracted pancreatitis and gallstones but was refused treatment. Yet he was repeatedly told he would be released if he would recant his allegations and, instead, implicate Browder as the mastermind of the tax scam. He refused every time.
Almost a year after he was arrested, desperately ill, Sergei was handcuffed to a bed rail in an isolation cell. Eight guards beat him with rubber truncheons. A little more than an hour later, he was dead.
Before Sergei was killed, Browder had been lobbying anyone he could think of to pressure the Russians into releasing his accountant. One of the agencies he approached in the spring of 2009 was the U.S. Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency in Washington that monitors human rights in 57 countries, including Russia.
Kyle Parker, one of the Russia experts there, wasn't interested. He knew who Browder was—the money manager who'd championed Putin, the guy who'd made the rounds of Western capitals a few years earlier trying to get his visa restored. He assumed that's what Browder was still after. "Not gonna be able to make it," he e-mailed a colleague scheduling the meeting. "Unless much has changed, I see this meeting as info only and would not support any action on our part."
He eventually met with Browder, though, and he listened to the story of Sergei. Parker understood, but it didn't seem especially uncommon. "I was thinking: Why is Bill trying to suck us into a pissing match between competing criminal groups?"
Parker didn't even include Sergei in a 2009 letter to Obama highlighting the commission's most pressing concerns.
After Sergei had been killed, Browder went back to the Helsinki Commission.
Parker told him how sorry he was. He told him that he cried when he heard Sergei was dead, that he read about it through teary eyes on the Metro, riding the Red Line home to his wife and kids. He said he was going to help.
"Here you have this Russian hero almost of a literary quality in Sergei Magnitsky," Parker told me. "He wasn't a guy who went to rallies with a bullhorn and protested human-rights abuses in Chechnya. He was a bookish, middle-class Muscovite. I see Sergei metaphorically as that Chinese guy standing in front of the tanks, but with a briefcase. He provided an example for all the other Russians that not everybody goes in for the deal, not everybody is corrupt, not everybody looks the other way when people are swindled."
What Browder wanted was some form of justice for Sergei, though what form that would take was unclear. He'd researched his options for months. The Russians weren't going to prosecute anyone—officially, Sergei died of heart failure. There was no international mechanism to hold Russian nationals criminally accountable in another country. "Eventually," Browder said, "it became obvious that I was going to have to come up with justice on my own."
He outlined a three-pronged approach. One was media, simply getting Sergei's name and his death and the reasons for it into the public consciousness. He talked to reporters, and he produced a series of YouTube videos, short documentaries on the people allegedly involved in Sergei's death.
The second was tracing the money. "They killed him for $230 million," Browder said, "and I was going to find out where that money went." It was parceled out to dozens of people, tucked away in Swiss accounts and American real estate and Panamanian banks, some of it held by proxies; part of it allegedly ended up in the account of a Russian cellist who happened to be a childhood friend of Putin's. By mining bank transfers and financial records, Browder and his staff have accounted for much of it, including $14 million allegedly laundered by a Cypriot company into Manhattan property. (The Justice Department froze those funds in 2013 but settled with the company, Prevezon, last summer for $5.9 million. Prevezon's owner, a Russian named Denis Katsyv, is represented by Natalia Veselnitskaya. The case did not allege that he had any role in Magnitsky's death.)
The final prong was political. Browder had heard about an obscure regulation that allows the State Department to put visa restrictions on corrupt foreign officials. But in the spring of 2010, the Obama administration was attempting to normalize relations with Russia—a "reset," as Obama famously put it. People die horrible deaths every day, and it's terrible and it shouldn't happen. But Russia is also a large country with a significant sphere of geopolitical influence and a lot of nuclear weapons. In that context, a dead middle-class tax lawyer wasn't relevant.
But what if, Parker suggested, they went to Congress? What if the legislature, rather than the administration, took action?
That was also a long shot. Getting any law passed is difficult, let alone one the administration opposes. But Browder told Sergei's story to congressional committees and individual senators and congressmen, and he kept telling it until the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act was passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law 11 days before Christmas 2012.
The act originally named 18 Russians, including bureaucrats implicated in the original scam; investigators Sergei had accused of being involved and getting a cut of the $230 million; jailers who tormented him; and two alleged killers. As more of the stolen money was traced, more names were added to the list. Everyone on it is banned from entering the United States and, more damaging, cut off from the American banking system. That has a ripple effect: Legitimate financial institutions all over the world monitor the Treasury Department list of sanctioned individuals and are loath to do business with anyone on it. "That's what people hate about it the most," Browder said. "It makes you a financial leper."
And that matters to Putin, Browder maintains, because the Russians on the list are not independently wealthy, like, say, Bill Gates or Richard Branson. "They're dependently wealthy," he said. "They're dependent on Putin." If the deal is that corrupt Russians can keep their cash in return for their loyalty, the Magnitsky Act is an enormous thorn in Putin's side. If he can't protect anyone's pilfered money, what's the point of loyalty? Putin surely understands that, because he was so transparently rattled: Taking orphans hostage is not the reasoned reaction of a man merely annoyed.
Browder initially wanted to call the law the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act. But Parker never took to that. "Banning some corrupt officials from coming here isn't even close to justice," he said. "But it's a legislative monument to Sergei Magnitsky until one day Russia builds a stone monument to him. Because I have no doubt he'll be seen as the Russian patriot and hero that he was."
Not quite three weeks after the Times broke the story of Veselnitskaya lobbying the Trump campaign to get rid of the Magnitsky Act, Browder testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about, primarily, how Russian operatives wield influence and frame their propaganda. Eight years after he'd started targeting a handful of Russian crooks, Browder was suddenly very relevant to a much larger political storm.
He flew home to London after he testified but had to return to the United States in early August. He checked in at an airline counter in Heathrow but was told there was a problem with his visa. He'd been flagged by Interpol, which had issued a red notice on him. It's basically an international arrest warrant, and it was the fourth requested by the Russians for Browder. Technically, a member nation is supposed to extradite him to the country that asked for the notice. But the British, along with other sensible Western nations, stopped taking Russia's attempts regarding Browder seriously years ago.
In the end, it was only an inconvenience. But what if he'd been in, say, Finland when that notice popped up? The Finns are fine people, but they also have a 500-mile border with Russia. Would letting Browder go be worth risking an international incident with a bigger, more aggressive neighbor? He can make a reasonable case that, no, he would not be worth it. "I'm very realistic about who's coming to my defense," he said. "I am my defense."
So he's careful. He avoids countries that might be friendly to Putin. Much of the Third World is out. So is Hong Kong. He'd be fine in Japan, but only if he didn't fly over Russian airspace. What if the plane has trouble and makes an emergency landing in Novosibirsk? That's where Khodorkovsky was seized and hauled off to a cage.
Even in London, he's cautious. He won't talk about his family or where he lives. He varies his schedule and his route to work every day. He doesn't eat in the same restaurant twice in succession, or in any restaurant with predictable frequency; Russian agents have reputedly twice poisoned dissidents in London. He told me the British government has rebuffed at least a dozen requests to extradite him, and American intelligence has warned him that Russian agents planned to grab him off the street.
Years ago, a Russian living in London came to Browder's staff with information about certain wealthy, corrupt people in Moscow. He was cagey and shifty and, at first, it seemed like he might be a Russian agent trying to plant false clues. But his information checked out and Browder learned who he really was. His name was Alexander Perepilichnyy, and he was nervous because he believed he was on a Russian hit list.
On November 10, 2012, Perepilichnyy dropped dead in front of his house in Surrey. There was no obvious cause of death—no heart attack or stroke or aneurysm—and an inquest wasn't opened until last June. Perepilichnyy wasn't a well-known dissident, so no one thought to take a hard look when he died. "They got away with it," Browder said, meaning the Russians. "That's a perfect example of why you don't want to be an anonymous guy who drops dead."
So Browder is deliberately not anonymous. He does not live in cloistered fear. When a car service got confused trying to pick him up for a photo shoot—definitely a way to not be anonymous—we took the Tube a few stops, then walked through Kentish Town to the studio. There was no security, just two men wandering around London. He has hobbies that he asked I not name, but none of them are solitary or sedentary. "One thing I can tell you," he said, "with the threat of death hanging over you, you live life to the fullest." He laughed a little.
In this new version of his life, Browder is still most often referred to as a financier, but that's only marginally true. He gave all his investors their money back, and manages only his own now. Justice for Sergei—and aggravating Putin—is his full-time job. His staff of 11 tracks money launderers, deciphering which flunky is fronting for which oligarch, sniffing out the rest of that $230 million. He lobbies other governments to pass their own versions of the Magnitsky Act. The United Kingdom has one, as does Estonia. Lithuania is close, and Canada passed one in October. "Unconstructive political games," Putin told a Canadian interviewer immediately after, orchestrated by "the criminal activities of an entire gang led by one particular man, I believe Browder is his name."
And Putin wasn't finished. A week later, Russia slipped another red notice into Interpol's system. For the second time in three months, Browder was temporarily barred from entering the U.S. It's relentless, Putin clawing at him, thrashing. "Their main objective is to get me back to Russia," he said. "And they only have to get lucky once. I have to be lucky every time."
"Everything Bill's done has cost him tremendously," Parker said. "It's cost him money, restricted his personal freedom. And he didn't have to. He was out of Russia. He could have done what many did and walked away. Bad things happen, right? But here's a guy who's proven whatever he needed to prove to himself. He made his money. Now here's a way to find meaning. It's also a debt of honor."
No, it's more than that. "It's penance," Browder said. Sergei Magnitsky was an ordinary Muscovite who happened to work for an American who annoyed Vladimir Putin. "Sergei was killed because of me. He was killed instead of me." He let that hang there a moment. "So, yeah, it's all penance."
Sean Flynn is a GQ correspondent.
This story originally appeared in the December 2017 issue with the title "Putin Enemy No.1."

press release

Turkey’s Detention of U.S. Citizens to Be Scrutinized at Helsinki Commission Hearing

Thursday, November 09, 2017

WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following hearing:
PRISONERS OF THE PURGE: THE VICTIMS OF TURKEY’S FAILING RULE OF LAW
November 15, 2017
9:30AM
Dirksen Senate Office Building
Room 124
Live Webcast: http://www.senate.gov/isvp/?type=live&comm=csce&filename=csce111517
In July 2016, the Turkish people helped defeat a coup attempt that sought to overthrow their country’s constitutional order. In pursuing those responsible for the putsch, however, Turkish authorities created a dragnet that ensnared tens of thousands of people. The state of emergency declared by President Erdogan in the immediate aftermath of the coup attempt remains in effect today and gives the government vast powers to detain or dismiss from employment almost anyone, with only minimal evidence.
Caught up in the sweeping purge are several American citizens, including pastor Andrew Brunson, who worked and raised his family in Turkey for more than 23 years. Despite the efforts of the President of the United States, among many others, he has spent more than a year in jail without trial on national security charges. Additionally, a Turkish-American NASA scientist and two Turkish employees of U.S. consulates stand charged with terrorism offenses despite no involvement with violent activity—a situation faced by thousands of other Turks.
The U.S. Helsinki Commission hearing will examine the factors contributing to the detention of American citizens, particularly Mr. Brunson, and U.S. consulate employees in Turkey, as well as the judicial processes to which they have been subject. One of Mr. Brunson’s family members and his U.S. attorney will testify about his ongoing detention. Witnesses will also discuss the impact of these arrests on U.S.-Turkey relations and policy recommendations that could help secure their release and promote Turkey’s respect for its rule of law and other commitments as a participating State of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Panel One:
Jonathan R. Cohen, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Department of State
Panel Two:
CeCe Heil, Executive Counsel, American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ)
Jacqueline Furnari, Daughter of Andrew Brunson
Nate Schenkkan, Director of the Nations in Transit Project, Freedom House

WASHINGTON—The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission, today announced the following briefing:
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM VIOLATIONS IN THE OSCE REGION:
VICTIMS AND PERPETRATORS
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
2:00PM
Russell Senate Office Building
Room 385
Live Webcast: www.facebook.com/HelsinkiCommission
All 57 participating States of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have committed to recognize and respect religious freedom as a fundamental freedom. However, some OSCE countries are among the worst perpetrators of religious freedom violations in the world.
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are currently designated by the U.S. State Department as “Countries of Particular Concern,” a designation required by U.S. law for governments that have “engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.” The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has recommended that Russia also be designated as a CPC and includes Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkey in its list of “Tier 2” countries that “require close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by governments.”
This briefing will happen just two days after CPC designations are due on November 13 (U.S. law requires the State Department to issue new CPC designations no later than 90 days after releasing its annual International Religious Freedom report). Panelists – including a representative from a frequently targeted religious group – will discuss religious freedom victims, violators, and violations in the OSCE region. The conversation will include recommendations for what governments and the OSCE institutionally should do to prevent and respond to violations. The intersection between security, a chronic justification for violations, and religious freedom will be featured.
The following panelists will offer brief remarks, followed by questions:
Ambassador Michael Kozak, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State
Dr. Daniel Mark, Chairman, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
Dr. Kathleen Collins, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota, and Scholar, Under Caesar’s Sword (a global three-year research project investigating how Christian communities respond when their religious freedom is severely violated)
Philip Brumley, General Counsel, Jehovah’s Witnesses

article

International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists

Thursday, November 02, 2017

By Jordan Warlick, Staff Associate
and Olivia Leggieri, Intern
November 2, 2017, marks the fourth International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists since the United Nations General Assembly’s resolution in December 2013. The UN chose this date in November to commemorate the assassination of two French journalists who were murdered while on assignment in Mali. This day serves as a reminder of the obligation of nations to take urgent measures to protect journalists and media workers and to bring the perpetrators of such targeted violence to justice. Currently, only one in ten cases committed against journalists worldwide ends in a conviction; since 1992, 695 journalists have been murdered with impunity in connection with their work.
The assassination of Russian journalist Natalya Estemirova in 2009 illustrates these cases of impunity. Estemirova was a courageous investigative reporter who covered government atrocities in the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation, particularly after Vladimir Putin launched the second Chechen war in 1999 in response to a series of apartment bombings. In 2006, she visited the Helsinki Commission to discuss her findings regarding human rights violations by Chechen authorities. At the meeting, she also expressed concern about the rising justification for the use of torture as a tool of counterterrorism in many countries, observing, “You cannot protect the law using illegal methods.”
Estemirova was abducted in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, on the morning of July 15, 2009, and found murdered in Ingushetia later that day. She was the fifth Novaya Gazeta journalist killed since 2000; to this day no one has been held responsible for her murder. At the time of her assassination, she was 51 years old and left behind a 15-year-old daughter.
Then-Helsinki Commission Chairman Senator Ben Cardin, Co-Chairman Congressman Alcee Hastings, and Ranking Members Senator Sam Brownback and Congressman Chris Smith condemned her murder. Chairman Cardin stated, “Murder and intimidation of activists and journalists is both a serious violation of human rights and an affront to any democracy.”
On the one-year anniversary of Estemirova’s murder, then-Co-Chairman Representative Alcee Hastings introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives to express solidarity with human rights defenders in the Russian Federation. The resolution called for an end to impunity for those responsible for such acts through the conduct of timely, transparent and thorough criminal investigations into the unresolved murders of human rights defenders, journalists, and political opposition members and the prosecution of all of those responsible for these crimes.
Chechen nationalists have also targeted Russian journalist Karina Orlova, who participated in a recent Helsinki Commission briefing on systematic violence against journalists in Russia and other OSCE participating States in the region. These threats ultimately led her to flee Russia and become a correspondent for Radio Echo of Moscow in Washington, D.C. She emphasized that attacks such as the ones she received force journalists to self-censor, but vowed to never do so herself.
Ruthless regimes do not have to kill every independent, critical, investigative journalist, just enough so that others will get the message and fall silent or leave. Violent attacks against journalists are often preceded by government-sanctioned or led smear campaigns and other forms of harassment. Participating States of OSCE are committed to protecting the freedom of the media and improving working conditions for journalists. However, violence against journalists in OSCE participating States signals a lack of compliance with the Helsinki Accords, and further, the need to bring justice to those attempting to silence the independent press.

article

Organization Profile: Forum 18

Friday, October 27, 2017

The Helsinki Final Act of 1975 recognizes religious freedom as a “human right and fundamental freedom.” Participating States of the OSCE “will recognize and respect the freedom of the individual to profess and practice, alone or in community with others, religion or belief acting in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience.”
The Helsinki Commission promotes and defends the religious freedom of people in the OSCE region, particularly prioritizing the cases of individuals and communities whose religious freedom has been violated and laws and policies that conflict with the Helsinki Final Act.
Forum 18 is a news organization dedicated to reporting on violations of religious freedom in several OSCE participating States, including in Central Asia and the South Caucasus; Russia; Belarus; and Turkey. Helsinki Commission Policy Advisor Nathaniel Hurd interviewed the editors of Forum 18 by email to learn more about their work and views about religious freedom in the countries they cover.
According to the editors, “The mission of Forum 18 is to provide original, reliable and detailed monitoring and analyses of threats and actions against the freedom of religion and belief of all people, whatever their religion or belief (including atheism and agnosticism), in an objective, truthful and timely manner.”
Violations of Religious Freedom in the Former Soviet Union
Forum 18 focuses its work on the states of the former Soviet Union, which the organization considers the worst violators of freedom of religion in the region.
“The worst violators of freedom of religion and belief in the territories Forum 18 monitors – governments – target anyone and any religious community they see as actually or potentially outside their control,” the editors noted. “Azerbaijan, for example, claims to be ‘an example of tolerance’ yet has repeatedly closed Sunni Muslim mosques. A 2014 police list of banned books [in Azerbaijan] includes Islamic texts by theologian Said Nursi, Jehovah's Witness texts, and the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible used by Christians and Jews. Police have long confiscated these texts and others during raids on Muslim, Jehovah’s Witness, and Baptist private homes and meetings of people exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief. There are many prisoners of conscience, especially human rights defenders and journalists. On July 3, 2017 Shia Imam Sardar Babayev was jailed for three years for leading mosque prayers because he was educated abroad.”
“The reality of freedom of religion and belief violations by governments in these territories and the necessity of documenting them is why we were founded,” noting that they work to protect the freedom of everyone whatever their religion or belief (including atheism and agnosticism). “Our founders and staff were and are totally convinced as a matter of Christian conviction that everyone with no exceptions – including people who would completely disagree with the Christian faith – must…be able to freely exercise the freedom of religion and belief, and related rights such as the freedoms of expression, association and assembly…Our personal experience in the territories we monitor and other states (such as the former East Germany), as well as our own convictions, make us committed to Forum 18’s work of monitoring and analyzing governments’ violations of their international human rights law obligations.”
In addition to its work on Azerbaijan, Forum 18 is also focusing on Uzbekistan’s raids, fines, jailing, and torture of Muslims, Protestants, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as the increasing number of prisoners of conscience being jailed in Kazakhstan for exercising freedom of religion and belief, including alleged adherents of Muslim missionary movement Tabligh Jamaat, Jehovah’s Witness Teymur Akhmedov, and Seventh-day Adventist Yklas Kabduakasov. Kazakhstan has also banned all mosques outside state control; expressions of non-Sunni Hanafi Islam; and discussion of faith by people without state permission, or not using state-approved texts, or outside state-approved locations. Kazakhstan’s persecution of atheist writer Aleksandr Kharlamov is also of concern.
In Russia, Forum 18 actively monitors the government’s “anti-extremist” nationwide ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as “anti-extremist” prosecutions, fines and jailing of Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses, including cases like that of Muslim Yevgeny Kim, who in in June 2017 was sentenced to three years in prison. Forum 18 is also concerned about nationwide religious literature bans, with the possessors of such texts being liable to criminal prosecution.
Accuracy and Objectivity Are Key
“Our overriding editorial objective is to as accurately as possible present the truth of a situation, both implicitly and explicitly,” note the editors of Forum 18. “It is vitally important that we cross-check information with local people, including religious communities and other human rights defender organizations where these exist. It is equally vital that in our published articles we carry the views of local people and human rights organizations – this enables local people to make their views on human rights violations known.”
“Similarly, we always seek the comments of relevant officials, such as public prosecutors, police and secret police officials, within the country being written about,” they continued. “Every article we publish includes information on all the sources used, even if some have to be described as remaining anonymous for fear of state reprisals.”
According to Forum 18, the organization’s efforts have resulted in “significant respect and usage among victims of human rights violations, human rights defenders (including journalists), diplomats, intergovernmental organizations, academics and others.”
“Accuracy is in itself an effective advocacy for human rights by countering with accurate information the false information presented by repressive regimes, who often seek to conceal their human rights violations,” the editors said.
The Worst of the Worst?
When asked which of the countries Forum 18 monitors should be considered the “worst of the worst,” the editors noted that developing such a ranking is difficult.
“Territories where serious…violations take place are places where people have a strong incentive to not discuss the state’s violations, for fear of state reprisals, making any reliable ranking of territories difficult,” they observed.
“Because in all the territories Forum 18 monitors governments violate individuals’, informal groups’, and communities’ freedom of religion and belief apparently as part of a declared or undeclared policies of increasing state control of society – even in states such as Georgia in the south Caucasus – we think it is best for readers to judge for themselves which countries are the worst violators of freedom of religion or belief at any one time,” the editors added.
Similarly, Forum 18 finds it difficult to rank the individual cases monitored by the organization. “In our view, each one of these cases where a government has violated an individual’s or group’s freedom of religion and belief can fairly be described as compelling.
We think this view is reinforced by the individual cases being part of a much broader pattern of intentional, systemic government violations of the human rights of everyone they rule.”
One case Forum 18 has followed close is that of Protestant Pastor Bakhrom Kholmatov in Tajikistan, who was jailed for three years for allegedly “singing extremist songs in church and so inciting ‘religious hatred.’” The regime has threatened family members, friends, and church members with reprisals if they reveal any details of the case, trial, or jailing.
Cooperation is Key
Cooperation is vital to the Forum 18 approach. “Cooperation in defense of human rights for all is both right in principle and more effective than competition,” the Forum 18 editors argue. “It is important to cooperate with others – including in our case providing accurate information – to help responses to violations of freedom of religion and belief and interlinked other fundamental freedoms to be as effective as possible. Our work with victims of freedom of religion and belief violations and other human rights defenders convinces us that this approach is the right one to follow.”
Twitter: @Forum_18
Facebook: @Forum18NewsService

publication

Corruption in Russia: An Overview

Monday, October 23, 2017

Endemic corruption is a defining characteristic of the Putin regime. While the president is the prime beneficiary, cronies maintain this system of corruption. These loyal supporters are necessary for Putin to ensure the status quo and they often pursue the government’s illicit interests, which it cannot fulfill itself.
This publication presents a succinct overview of the systemic corruption present in Russia. Unlike corrupt systems where oligarchs rule and compete with one another over power and wealth, Russia has developed a top-down structure of corruption, where the political and business success of elites is dependent almost entirely upon their relationship to the President. Although these elites continue to be called “oligarchs,” it is no longer appropriate to think of them as such. Rather, they ought to be thought of as “cronies.”
Download the full report to learn more.

in the news

Corruption Currents

Monday, October 23, 2017

A daily roundup of corruption news from across the Web. We also provide a daily roundup of important risk & compliance stories via our daily newsletter, The Morning Risk Report, which readers can sign up for here. Follow us on Twitter at @WSJRisk.
Bribery:
A bribery case in Russia involving the country’s elite is causing a stir in the Kremlin. (NY Times)
The question of what constitutes bribery is trickier than it seems. (Washington Post, GAB)
The NCAA bribery scandal claimed more scalps. (AP, ESPN, 24)
Cybercrime:
The Dark Web’s most notorious thief was doxed. (Daily Beast)
The hack of Equifax is leading to calls to change the credit-reporting industry. (NPR)
Fraud:
A federal judge postponed a Texas lawmaker’s fraud trial. (mySA)
Money Laundering:
Canadian authorities laid charges against a money-transfer firm in a case of alleged drug-linked money laundering. The firm didn’t respond to a request for comment. (Vancouver Sun)
A guilty plea to a structuring charge, in which he made transactions of a certain size to avoid regulators, killed a man’s business and his wife, and the IRS won’t return his money. (Washington Post)
The son of Thailand’s former premier blasted authorities for releasing photos of him answering questions about money-laundering allegations. (Bangkok Post, Reuters, Bangkok Post)
Indian authorities continue bringing money-laundering cases. (Express, Telegraph)
Sanctions:
The U.S. State Department revoked the visa of Bill Browder after Russia sought an Interpol notice for his arrest in the death of Sergei Magnitsky. Mr. Magnitsky, however, died in Russian police custody after reporting a tax fraud while working for Mr. Browder; his death led the U.S. to pass the Magnitsky Act. (Newsweek, NPR, euronews, NY Times, Channel4)
Iran’s president is cutting back on the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ power amid sanctions. Did President Donald Trump preserve the status quo on the Iran deal? (NY Times, Platts)
Turkey’s banking regulator dismissed reports that the country’s financial institutions face fines for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. (Reuters)
Switzerland implemented a series of sanctions on North Korea. (Swissinfo)
Terrorism Finance:
Can bankers fight terrorism? (Foreign Affairs)
Transparency:
Panama Papers: Malta offered a $1.18 million reward for information on the person who killed a reporter investigating the leak. The EU ended its inquiry into the leak. (AP, WNYC, EuroNews)
Whistleblowers:
A U.K. judge sued to be included as a class of whistleblowers. (Guardian)
General Anti-Corruption:
The U.S. is seeking to seize assets it said were looted from disaster relief in the Philippines and placed in California. (OCWeekly)
China’s anti-graft czar is about to leave the agency as Beijing puts new laws in place. The country banned its notorious interrogation technique as part of the reforms. (SCMP, SCMP, Reuters)
Officials: Slovakia jailed government ministers for corruption for the first time. A fugitive former Mexican state official allegedly stole cows bought with government funds. (Bloomberg, BBC)
A South African corruption investigation continues. U.K. banks were exposed, regulators say. (Guardian, Fin24, TimesLive, BBC)
The Helsinki Commission fights kleptocracy. (KI)
U.S. investigations into Russian meddling in the U.S. election continue, as Mr. Trump pledged to pay staffers’ legal bills. (NBC, NY Times, Washington Post)
Taekwondo generated the most corruption complaints in Korean sports. (Korea Herald)

On October 11, 2017, U.S. Helsinki Commission anti-corruption policy advisor Paul Massaro joined experts including Ilya Zaslavskiy of the Free Russia Foundation; Jeffrey Gedmin of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service; David Kramer of Florida International University’s Green School for International and Public Affairs; Louise Shelley of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University; Sarah Chayes of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace; and Ambassador Richard D. Kauzlarich of the Center for Energy Science and Policy to discuss the threat that kleptocratic regimes pose to the United States and its allies. The public seminar was hosted by the Hudson Institute and was moderated by Charles Davidson, the Executive Director of the Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative.
A recent report by Zaslavskiy, “How Non-State Actors Export Kleptocratic Norms to the West,” was the focal point of the event, which was designed to explore the nature and mechanisms of kleptocracy and strategies Washington can employ to combat it.
During the discussion, the panelists stressed the threat kleptocracy poses to global democracy; described the extent to which it is entrenched in authoritarian societies; and explained how the silence of our institutions enables this system to perpetuate itself. Though kleptocrats benefit from criminal activity, their exploitation of legitimate financial and legal institutions insulates them. Furthermore, the panel noted the dual nature of the environment in which corruption thrives; it not only finds fertile ground in states with a legacy of autocracy, but also in cultures of acquiescence and complicity.
Discrediting such public indifference is among the most severe challenges Western institutions face, but it is one that must be addressed in order to successfully combat kleptocracy. In his remarks, Massaro outlined the avaricious and cruel nature of kleptocracy and the grave threat it poses to democracy and the rule of law. He characterized the fight against kleptocracy as an ideological struggle between corruption and the rule of law, and strongly reaffirmed the Helsinki Commission’s resolve to counter global corruption in all its forms.
As Massaro explained, “On the Hill, we [the Helsinki Commission] have become the primary forum for discussion of the topic and we will continue to work to expose the severity of kleptocratic practices.”
He commended his fellow panelists on their committed work to combat corruption and challenge kleptocratic norms and reaffirmed the Commission’s aim to work collaboratively with other organizations to recognize and meet this challenge.